Berlusconi suffered a fractured nose, two broken teeth and a lip injury, Paolo Klun, a San Raffaele hospital official, said.

The attack happened on Sunday as the 73-year-old Italian leader signed autographs and greeted the crowd outside the cathedral.

He fell to the ground before being ushered into a car by aides but repeatedly tried to get out to show his bloodied face to the public and cameras in the square.Berlusconi’s personal doctor Alberto Zangrillo said he would be kept under observation for at least 24 hours and would need up to 15 days to recover.The prime minister asked to see the newspapers as soon as he woke up, the Italian ANSA news agency reported.

He told ANSA that he was “fine” and considered it a “miracle” that he had not been hit in the eyes.

Massimo Tartaglia, a 42-year-old Milan resident with a history of mental illness, was detained by the police and is being questioned, Italian media reports said.The attack was condemned across the political spectrum. Umberto Bossi, the leader of the Northern League party and Berlusconi’s closest ally, described it as “an act of terrorism”.Opposition leader Pier Luigi Bersani said it was an “unspeakable gesture that must be firmly condemned”.

Earlier in the evening, Berlusconi told a rally to mark the opening of public membership of the People of Freedom party that his popularity rating stood at 63 per cent.

He said his government had saved the world economy by persuading the US government to intervene “after they had left Lehman Brothers to their fate” in order to avoid “the failure of 400 banks, saving the world from an incredible and tremendous crisis”.At one point he interrupted the rally to address protesters who had been chanting “buffoon”, telling them they should be ashamed of themselves.

He boasted that he was still “young and on form”, opening his shirt to show that he “wasn’t even wearing a vest”.

According to opinion polls, his popularity has slipped to just over 50 per cent after a year during which he has been plagued by legal troubles and lurid newspaper headlines about his alleged involvement in sex scandals.

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